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Outside
Whether or not Republican Senator Larry Craig did or did not solicit sex in the mensroom of an airport, one has to wonder what the policeman in the stall next to him was doing at the time. Just as with George Michael, what's a guy to do when he's propositioned by an undercover honey pot? How are the police trained to take up this assignment, with kneepads and a sock stuffed in the fly of their pants?
Such set-ups don't exist in NYC, (so far as I know - but they do occasionally pose as street hookers, and I was almost arrested for looking at a woman on East 85th street in 1995) but woe betide you if a policeman does want to arrest you for using a public bathroom or leaving a subway through a secondary exit. About a decade ago, I was exiting the Third Avenue express subway stop because my station, the next local stop, was closed for repairs. When I got to the top of the steps in the median level, two cops had a crying young, handcuffed, belly-up against the wall, and they grabbed me, mockingly asking why I was using the "back exit." I asked them whether they had heard that the train was skipping my stop or not?
I asked if I was under arrest, they told me to get out of the station. I asked the man whom they had handcuffed, belly up against the wall, who did not speak English, if he had done anything. He said no, I said not to worry, that the police could not do anything to him and I would stay with him if he wanted. You should have seen the anger on the cop's faces - they didn't speak Spanish. They demanded to know what I was doing and I told them that I had told the guy his rights and not to worry that they couldn't treat him the same way cops in his home country would, that in America we have rights. I offered my services as an interpreter and offered them my ID (A good habit I learned from having been arrested for being white in the wrong neighbourhood several dozen times.) The cops released him and held me while they checked for warrants I knew they wouldn't find. The tearful guy - a kid really - was grateful. I told him never to worry about the cops if he hadn't done anything wrong. The cops apologized to me and told me that people hung out in the tunnels to do drugs and "other stuff." (Duh!) I said I knew, but until my station reopened they'd be seeing me on a regular basis. God, what fun!
Now we see the morale of the Republican Senate, with cowards who have nothing to win by standing up for a man who plead guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, coming forward and criticizing him for "disgusting" behavior of which they have no proof. Maybe the man was guilty, but if so, he was certainly entrapped, and the DA was happy to accept a plea deal. Well, those Senators will win the God Hates Fags vote, I suppose. Democrats never turn on their own, even after they are impeached, filmed accepting bribes, or their pregnant interns disappear and they lose a primary challenge. When Republicans sniff blood, out come the long knives. What gives?
Ted Keer
(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/29, 5:52pm)
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